Automobile racing as a sport is increasing in popularity. With the increased interest in automobile racing, sponsors, networks and other like media have capitalized upon the sport through televising the events and/or broadcasting the race on AM and FM radio stations.
Typically, racing events are held in a looped track format where race car driver teams are stationed along the track, typically in the pit-stop area. In virtually all instances associated with professional racing, the pit-crews are in communication with the race car driver. The pit-crews may additionally be in radio communication with other crew members. In this regard, there is a substantial amount of radio activity occurring at the race track which could be monitored and utilized in some usable format. Although it may be possible for a spectator to use a conventional type scanner to lock-in on the pit-crew radio frequencies, the same would be time consuming to program in the frequencies assigned to the racing teams and divert the attention of the spectator away from the racing event itself. In order to perform the programming operation, the user of the scanning radio has to remember the frequencies assigned to the racing teams. Although the assigned frequencies of the racing teams may be learned from published listings, it is very cumbersome for the user to program the frequencies of all of the desired racing teams. With a conventional radio scanner the user is limited to assigning one frequency to a channel number. Typically, a user will program a racing team frequency and assign it to a channel number that matches the car number. There exists a problem in that most racing teams have more than one frequency assigned to them, resulting in the user having to assign the additional frequencies to channel numbers that do not match the car number which is confusing. Further, during a typical racing event weekend there will be more than one racing division of cars in participation, thus resulting in the user having to reprogram the conventional scanner channel frequencies for each racing division which takes a great deal of time. Thus, it is not practical to use a conventional scanner for a spectator to monitor the plurality of pit-crews and the radio frequencies used by such pit-crews. Accordingly, there is a need for a device which a spectator at a racing event could monitor a plurality of pit-crews with a minimal amount of programming. It would be additionally advantageous to have a device that would also monitor T.V. and radio broadcasts, track data information being broadcast, as well as race official broadcast. It would be additionally advantageous to utilize a device which may be configured for each racing event without having to reprogram the radio with racing team frequencies.